Hi all,
Now I am back in Arlington, VA. It is nice to be back to DC area. Cherry blossom season and beautiful Spring. I am feeling little weird though. I am missing Africa. Dear tea lover if any of you are around Northern Virginia area and interested to have a cup tea please just drop me a off-line message. Here you go enjoy my tea travel story.
Mozambique:
I am leaving Mozambique after two years. I enjoyed Mozambican Gurue black CTC tea last two years. I am sad to leave Africa specially my great memory with local and South African tea friends. I enjoyed the safari world many time and my wine tasting session in Cape Town. I have shipped my tea collection to La Paz, Bolivia where I will be around July. I am sad to leave my 150+ tea collection for a while but I have to bare the pain. I have sent 1/4 of collection in Arlington so I can continue my tea blending over there. I am also looking forward to have tea with local tea lovers. Africa is beautiful I enjoyed mother nature, great African teas, tea friends, wild life, safari- Victorian African art. I have collected some great African tea and many African art. I had to fill in two 20' sea containers for all my art. I will come back to Africa again. It is hard to leave a country after living two years. I really enjoyed Africa.
I will Miss historic hotel Polana(please see my post with 21st centuries Allan Quartermene and meeting Thai ice tea adventure etc.)
Maputo, Mozambique
03/04/07Johannesburg,South Africa:
Johannesburg NY of South Africa. I am here after a short 45 minutes flight by South African Airways(SA). SA joined with Star Alliance recently which helped me to gain a lot of frequent flyers with my United Airlines frequent flyers card. I will use them for traveling in South America from Bolivia. FYI, Bolivia is a tea grower nation and my contact in La Paz informed me that Bolivia grow tea in 14,000 feet high mountains. Must be good tea but possible to be inferior quality for poor tea processing method. I was extremely busy working in Mozambique but in Bolivia I will take my life easy and spend some time with tea.
Last two years I made many friends in South African specially some wine growers in Cape Town(CT) some of them were also tea fanatics. I flew quiet often from Maputo to Cape Town to enjoy wine and tea tasting. I will never forget my tea experience in Mount Nelson Hotel in CT. I am very confident to say South Africa is one the most beautiful country on earth and Cape Town is one of the top beautiful costal city in the world. CT is stylish, well developed and full of fun. I know South Africa is widely known for her crimes which is very true but I enjoyed my time and met many wonderful people without any incident. Though racism is wide spread around the country but I didn't encounter any of those. I went very well with white Africans(Dutch), English, Zulus, black and local Indian communities. Some of them became friends for life. Some of my wine grower friends helped me to see the real beauty of South Africa. I am leaving many tea friends behind but I am sure I will visit them again.
South African black tea has to long way to go. I have no question and doubt about Kenyan full leave tea. I enjoyed fresh Roibos several occasion. I met some Roibosh growers and traders in Cape Town.
I was so tired for packing so I am waiting for my early connecting flight to Paris, France and spend some time in Paris. Ah, Paris a great city with nice tea shop, cafe and restaurants. Now time to turn off my laptop.
Ripon Johannesburg International Airport
Paris, France:
My favorite hotel in Paris is Sofitel Arc de Triomphe. Triomphe is downtown Paris is easy to walk around the city with many shops and landmarks. Another reason I love Sofitel because they provide loose tea from "Betjeman & Barton". I arrived early morning in Paris and took the airport bus to the hotel. The weather was cold and the first drinks I had was a cup of hot chocolate in the hotel lobby. My hotel was just in downtown Paris around many cafes, boutique stores. one of my friend came to pick me up to show me around. She used to be a tea bag drinker but I turned her into a loose tea drinker. Our tour started from Louvre Museum which has 600 world famous painting. Louvre has an extensive art collection from 13th-18th centuries. I saw the famous Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. People always gathered around this painting whichis locked inside a glass box. I never understand why this painting was so famous though it is a nice piece of art. I spend five hours in the museum. The Perisian(Iran) and Egyptian collection was more interesting to me. I was happy to see Starbuck and had a good mug of Caramel Machiato. At the end we spend some time outside of the Museum where the glass pyramids stands. Paris always take me couple centuries back and I lost my soul every time I go there. After that I have visited the Eiffel tower but the line was very long so I didn't go top of the tower. I was also tired of traveling. Many Americans complains French people are not friendly but in my case I never had any problem with them. I think they have very strong political opinion as well as many American. I always find quiet similarity between American and French. We both feel our democratic system is correct, we both believes our economic model is the best, we both believes we carry almost perfect political, social, cultural ideology and should be followed by other countries. I think the misunderstanding and clash origin from both of our strong believe-:) When I worked for private sector I have visited France many time and never encounter problem with locals. This time I had to face some though question about Iraq invasion but as always I decline to comment on this issue because I don't know enough of this crisis. I had a great tea time with my previous business contact there. She and her partner are in fashion industry. I used to supply fabric to them. We had a great dinner and they showed me some new fashion houses. Parisians are very stylish.
Anyway, I woke up early must be jet legged. I couldn't sleep well while I was there. Might be too much Coffee and tea or I was just tired. I called my Algerian-French friend to take me to have good Algerian food. He picked me up and straight took me to his house. I had great food and mint tea with his wonderful French wife and two beautiful kids. I always enjoy Arab hospitality though Algerians are not like typical Arab. Algeria has a strong connection with Americans because during their independent movement Americans were very sympathetic with them. If you ever go to Algeria all you need to say you are American than you will see the magic. My friend works for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and he gave me an wonderful overview about French upcoming election, foreign affairs and the problem between Algerian-French and some typical racist French. As always I never comments on political issue often but I am very open with my friends about my political view. Anyway, he is an expert brewing mint tea and I had couple cups of wonderful mint tea in his house. He helped me shopping and show me around Paris.
Betjeman & Barton tea shop:
Next morning I visited "Benjeman & Barton" (B & T) tea shop in blv. Malesherbes. I walked all the way to the shop from my hotel. I love to walk around Paris. The centuries old building gives me a peaceful feeling. B&T is a wonderful tea store. They offers more than 100 types of tea, blends, antique tea pots, new tea pots from all over the world. I was very happy to see Chinese Chingou black tea. Few vendors offers this great black Chinese tea. I bought 100 gm of Yunnan gold, Chingou, Assam Mangalam though Doomni is my favorite, Ceylon Dellawa, Breakfast royal and Morning Kick blends. Their Keemun collection was very poor quality but Chine Grand Szechawan was very high grade quality. The tea store is wonderfully decorated. The sells lady spoke very little English so I couldn't talk that much though I had many question. I was lucky a 30's young woman came to buy tea and was interested when I was selecting tea one after another. She asked me why I am buying so much tea. I told her I was in Mozambique for two years and missed a real tea shop. This world is very small. She was very happy to know I just moved from Africa because she always wanted to visit Africa continent and couldn't decide which country she should go first. She asked me if I have time to have tea with her and share some of my African experience. I accepted her offer of course I have seen French, German people are always interested about Africa. I met few American rather than more European tourist while I was in Africa. European have historical connection with Africa. I guess that is the reason why they travel in Africa more often. Another reason is they love to collect African art, precious stones and iron wood furniture's etc. European rich people also love the beauty of Africa and they like to travel with style. I met many European and learned a lot from them. Some of them actually have relatives and come to visit them. We American take time to be friend with people compare to European. Europeans are more interested to talk to strangers. I am not saying it is bad or good I am just talking about the difference of these two different culture. Anyway, this post is about tea and culture not history. Sorry sometime I derail from my main topic. Anyway the lady introduce herself as a cosmetic wholesaler and she helped me to communicate with the tea lady in B & B tea shop. I asked her few question how they collect their teas, how they store, check quality etc. She was very curious and full of knowledge about tea. She asked me if I am in tea business with caution. Once she realized I am simply a tea lover she open up herself. French people are nice people once you can put away your political and cultural differences-:)
It was almost evening and Helen invited me to have tea in a cafe. French culture is a very Cafe culture where you drinks coffee, tea and smoke. Paris is always a heaven for me as a smoker. I feel very comfortable there as a smoker. Majority people smoke cigarette in Paris. We chose a bistro kind of Cafe and order some Assam. The most interesting part to meet strangers are once people start feeling comfortable you start discovering how interesting an individual person is. Every single person has a history to share. At least that's the way I see an individual. I also start beginning to understand her strong connection with Africa. She was married with a man who was from Senegal(A former French colony in west Africa). Her former husband came to France to study and used to work as a professional banker. Though he was very smart and well educated but he was discriminated quiet often. As a man of honor he was never happy here. Once when Helen's family said something discriminatory about Senegal he burst out and just left France with out any notice. He never contacted her again. What a sad story. I explained to her I also came to America from a foreign country and my wife is American but I never faced any discrimination. She say I look very confident person and people will not dare to discriminate me. I didn't want to miss this opportunity to say this. I told maybe that is the difference between the United States and France. We are free people and equal by right. She replied United States is a country of immigrants not like France. Well, I knew it was time to change the topic-:) Anyway I convinced her to visit South Africa, Zambia, Egypt and Algeria. It is sad to see successful woman like Helen who has so much pain inside. We end up having dinner in Le Cino in ave. George 5. It was little pricy but the food and service was impeccable. Paris is a great place for food, wine, coffee, tea and bread.
Today is my last day in Paris. I am little sad to leave. I always love Paris for her beauty. I understand why French philosopher Voltaire once said- "Open my heart, you will only see the city of Paris". It is even very easy to fallen love with Paris as a foreigner. Though I always like to live in small cities rather than bustling cities but Paris is a great place for a short trip. I had a wonderful cup of first flush Darjeeling before heading in the Charge the Gaul International airport. The airport is very high tech and well managed. Anyway, after two years here I am coming to the United States. Now I am turning off my laptop.
Charge the Gaul Airport
Lakewood, WA:
I discover a tea room calls "Steeping in Comfort". I will write a separate post on it. It is nice to be back. The weather is cool. Washington is always a beautiful state. I love the view of Mount Rainer white peak. I had good tea time in Seattle as well. Seattle is so different than east cost. People are very easy going. No wonder why the richest man in the world Bill Gates is so gentle-:) I traveled here and there but still sleeping a lot. I am tired. Now I have to buy a lot of winter cloths. It is nice to be back. I will be here two weeks for R & R than heading in to Arlington,VA. I will be there for Spanish language training. I will there 3-4 months than again heading in to La Paz,Bolivia for 2-4 years. I am really tired of thinking of all this trips.
Ripon Arlington, VA